Those Flyers

What amazes us most about this New York Magazine item, which revisits those notorious “racist” flyers from the 2001 campaign, is how Freddy has evidently forgiven what once appeared to be a rather personal wound; while Mike Bloomberg, the sole beneficiary of the Democrats’ racial meltdown, is now keeping the grievance alive.

To explain: Freddy, as the New York piece points out, essentially launched this year’s campaign by embracing Carl Kruger, a South Brooklyn pol who played a central role in Mark Green’s much-criticized appeal to white Brooklyn voters.

Mike, meanwhile, seems to have pursued rather extreme means of distancing himself from the affair. The kid who did the mechanical work of designing the flyer, Micah Lasher, is now a political consultant. (When we say “kid,” we mean that, as we recall, he was 19, and an undergrad at NYU, in 2001.) His partner is doing work for Bloomberg. And Team Bloomberg is petrified of the flyer’s taint:

“Bloomberg’s advisors were so worried about flyer blowback that, after some debate, they had Lasher sign a notarized paper saying he’d recused himself from working with them.”

Notarized?! This strikes us as quite a precedent. What better way to validate the charge that the flyer was racist, toxic, a page from Der Sturmer? And what better way to signal that you’ll be an easy target for similar accusations in October?